


fearful instrument

by TolkienGirl



Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [126]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Colonialism, Gen, POV Outsider, Slavery, The Haladin are a fictional Native tribe, Twins, set post-Chapter 13 of WTHC, title from Longfellow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-14 23:43:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20609306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: His father's spear lies broken.





	fearful instrument

_Twins_, the wise woman said, her wrinkled lips smiling even as her eyes dimmed in sorrowful memory, _are the Spirit’s gift in bad times._

They were named gracefully as young deer: Haldar and Haleth, rarely apart, running half-naked through the grass for their first summers, wrapped in wolfskin rugs for their first winters. When they grew older, they were dressed accordingly in soft embroidered hides, fitted with bone rings in their ears polished white as early sunlight. Such was their history.

So many of their ancestors had died from the fearsome pox, but theirs was land ahead and behind, the elders said, to which they could still run.

Sometimes, when the pale devils came too close, lying and stealing with no respect for the grass they beat under their feet, Haldar and Haleth’s people fought back. Haldar and Haleth, before ten winters had passed between them, ventured out with pouches full of stones, to rain a heavy hail on the pale ones from afar.

In peace, Haldad, their father and chief, trained them both to know the names of every creature, every warrior, every river. Every ray of the sun.

All the ancestors who were gone.

(Haleth was better at remembering these things.)

_His father’s spear lies broken, and his father’s proud forehead is cloven in two. The blood is running, rich like the earth’s heart, and it runs down into his still-open eyes. Haldar remembered the moment in waking and sleeping, afterwards. Haldar remembered it then, even as it happened._

_There had not been fighting for months. They were far from the pushing settlers, up in the cold northern lands. _

_These are not settlers, who seize Haldar’s hands. Who bind him like a child swaddled, who carry him away. They steal his hides and his hair, they seal iron round his ankle. _

_He speaks their tongue. This feels like the greatest betrayal of all._

“It’s nothing.” Gwindor growls, through his teeth. Haldar’s ears are burning fiercely with shame, the same shame he feels when one of the overseers sees he is not strong enough for something, and gives him a harsh cuff as punishment.

“Nothing?” Belle whispers, arms folded tightly over her flat chest. “How many nights—”

No one explains anything to Belle, who was woken by the sound of their returning. As the rest of the men climb into their burrows, Haldar lingers. He can see it all, the wrenching blows and the vile ending, the lash snaking over Gwindor’s back. Gwindor didn’t make a sound, as he was whipped, but that means nothing.

_Does _nothing, to bring down Haldar’s shame.

_His father’s spear lies broken._

_Twins—_

_But he is never going to see his sister again._

_Blood runs down into his father’s still-open eyes._

“You,” Lem says. “Haldar, yes. Come here, boy.”

Belle is still fussing at Gwindor, and Gwindor is telling her to leave off, to sleep. He cares not for his back, he says stiffly. Only let him alone to press his damned shoulder against something hard.

_How many nights… _Haldar is shaken by the sudden truth of it, how they used to work into the dark hours, crafting ties for the railroad (Gwindor had explained the matter of trains to him), and how now, they drudge round the growing village by day and are used for the Master’s games when the sun goes down.

Haldar is shaken.

“Well?” Lem says.

It isn’t like Lem to be quiet, and it isn’t like Haldar to trust him. Lem has tweaked his ears and tripped him and stolen his rations.

But Lem hates the stranger, the redhaired devil, and that is enough for now.

Lem leads him round the corner of the barracks, to where the grass is beaten flat.

“What?” Haldar is almost a man. When he was a prince of his people, he was still a child. But it doesn’t change anything, to think of that. He can’t run in the fields and sleep with the softness of wolves any longer.

Lem scratches his beard. “I’ve a proposition for ye.”


End file.
